Two and a half months of nothing occurs after the group of nine set up their camp in the Andes. Every day, Florin leads his students up one of the many mountain passes all around them, Isabelle getting rather sweaty and immediately tired when she hikes up along with the rest of her peers.

After a month of looking and finding absolutely nothing, they move their campsite to about fifty kilometres further along into the depths of the mountains. That month, surprise, surprise, resulted in shit all, so they moved their campsite once more.

And now, two weeks into this third campsite, it's clear everyone's becoming extremely annoyed and short-tempered. Fair enough, Isabelle thinks. After all, they've been stuck with each other for the past seven and a half months nonstop, and they haven't found so much as a single trace of a Peruvian Vipertooth for almost three months now.

As if to demonstrate just how much everyone's tempers are flaring, Christopher and Luca, who usually get along really well, got into a massive fight. At first, Florin tried half-heartedly to stop it, but he gave up soon after, deciding they were both adults and can take care of themselves.

Isabelle sat around with the other six, just watching the fight, sometimes encouraging the two of them along. It was their first bit of entertainment in months, after all. A welcome change to the constant moping around camp, and aching feet from all the walking they've had to do so far.

Christopher ended up victorious, which was no surprise to any of them, really, as he's pretty much pure muscle, but Luca did manage to get a couple of hits in, breaking Christopher's nose. Elena had to patch him up afterwards, along with Luca, who had several fractured ribs and bruises all over his body.

The two of them naturally didn't speak to each other for the next week, which was fairly difficult, as they share a tent, and everyone else refused to swap out with them.

Isabelle found herself getting increasingly annoyed with Elena, too, which surprised her greatly, as she's never thought ill of the dark-haired girl before. She didn't necessarily have a reason for it, but she supposes it was because the two of them had been around each other constantly for almost the past eight months with no break. Well, she'd been around everyone nonstop, she supposes, but she slept in the same tent as Elena and usually walked with her and just never had a break from her, like she usually would with the boys.

She had a feeling Elena was becoming annoyed at her, as well, so the two girls sat themselves down and bitched and yelled at each other about how awful the other was for a moment, until they both calmed down with that out of their system, and decided they both still liked each other but just needed to have some space. So, for the next week, they walked and hung out with different boys each day, and only really saw each other in the tent at nighttime; soon enough, their negative feelings towards the other dissipated.

In fact, Isabelle's walking with Elena at the moment, following along after Florin as he leads them up and around a new mountain, his eight students paired up behind him. In an attempt to keep themselves entertained, the two girls played a number of games as they walked, trying to guess what each other was seeing, and counting their steps as they went.

They quickly grew bored of that, however, and now they've fallen into silence again. So have all the boys, in fact. The only thing Isabelle can hear as they continue are everyone's heavy breathing and shuffling feet, and the occasional distant noise of some animal.

And because of this repetition, because they've been walking the same way for kilometre after kilometre with nothing happening, Isabelle doesn't realise what's going on until Elena screams. Her own eyes widen and her wand's immediately in her hand, as she grabs Elena and pulls the dark-haired girl behind her.

Five Peruvian Vipertooths are suddenly upon them, snarling and growling and biting at them, attacking the group of nine with their talons and teeth.

"Everyone down!" Florin yells, dropping his pack to the ground as he fires a spell at one of the dragons. "Try to make yourself as small a target as possible! Fend them off but try not to wound them!"

Isabelle and Elena, adrenaline pumping, turn back-to-back, breathing in quickly as they shoot spell after spell at the oncoming copper-coloured dragons. It seems as though the dragons found them, not the other way around. Isabelle doesn't know if she's happy about it or not yet. She supposes she'll find out after this is over and whether they're all unscathed in the end, or whether they end up as Vipertooth food.

The Vipertooth is notorious for its particular craving for humans.

She shakes the thought from her head and keeps fighting the dragons back. Even though she's wearing her cloak just like everyone else, Isabelle finds she doesn't need to use it much at all; the Vipertooths rarely breathe jets of flame at them, seeming to prefer to use their venomous bite than to burn their victims. So long as they all stay out of reach of their teeth, they should be fine. And that's easy enough.

But even as she thinks that, Isabelle cries out in pain, her shoulder erupting in agony: a dragon she didn't notice while she was fighting another one snuck up behind her and has bitten down hard on her left shoulder, puncturing her flesh and clamping down tightly.

"ISABELLE!" Elena screams again as the French girl vaguely feels herself being dragged along the ground by her shoulder, the dragon hauling her away from the others.

She faintly hears Charlie roar, but his voice is distant, second to the throbbing in her shoulder, the pounding in her ears. Her eyes blur, and she can barely see what's going on, her shoulder feeling as though it's on fire as the dragon keeps yanking her away.

And then she feels her body leave the ground.

She's airborne.

Shit.

No. This is not good. This is not good at all. The Vipertooth's going to carry her away to its hiding place and then just watch on as its poison swims through her veins, drowning her heart. Or, perhaps it will rather eat her alive.

Isabelle, unsurprisingly enough, doesn't like the sound of either option.

With a bellow of pain that threatens to snap her vocal cords, she twists herself around in the dragon's death-grip, jabs her wand up in between the Vipertooth's eyes, and shouts the first spell that comes to mind.

An arrow fires from the end of her wand, piercing the dragon's skin. With a screeching shriek, it releases Isabelle from its jaws and she goes hurtling towards the ground.

She squeezes her blurry eyes shut, not having the energy to do anything about her fall, the agony of her shoulder taking over all her other thoughts.

Isabelle's eyes open again when she doesn't feel the impact of the ground. Blurry figures, faces, hover above her, all talking to each other in expressive voices. What expression each holds, she doesn't know. She doesn't have the energy to decipher it.

Her eyelids squeeze shut once again as her whole body seems to erupt in fire. But it doesn't burn, it just causes her body to ache, and she groans, her whole body tensing.

Venom. The Peruvian Vipertooths' fangs are venomous. Oh, Merlin, she's going to die. Even as she thinks it, the pain in her body starts to ease. Yup, that's it, she's dying already.

But then, the pain seems to vanish altogether, aside from a dull ache in her shoulder that lets her know she is indeed very much alive. Her eyes snap open, and like the lens of a camera sharpening its focus, all the eight faces above her own lose their fuzzy edges, coming into sharp relief.

Elena's there. She's crying, Isabelle notices, and her eyebrows furrow. No, don't cry, she's ok: here, look—

Isabelle cries out in pain as she tries to sit up.

"Don't try to move," someone says, pushing her back down to the ground. Florin. "I'm not finished yet," he says.

It's only in that moment does she realise he has his wand out, pointed at her mutilated shoulder. She goes still as he continues to work on it, throwing aside the empty vial in his hand. Antidote, Isabelle realises. That's why the pain in her body eased.

Slowly, the pain in her shoulder dissipates, too, and Florin allows her to sit up.

"Ouch," Isabelle frowns as she looks down at the bloody mass of flesh her shoulder once was.

To her surprise, Florin lets out a laugh. "Yeah, no shit, kid," he says, shaking his head as he continues to point his wand at her shoulder. She watches as her skin seems to sew itself back together, until it's just a series of deep puncture wounds where the Vipertooth's teeth were.

"I'm afraid I can't do anything more than that," Florin says, tucking his wand away and standing up.

"Oh, Isabelle," Elena cries as soon as Florin moves away, pulling the French girl in a tight hug that makes her wince. Horrified, Elena goes to pull away, but Isabelle wraps her good arm around the dark-haired girl and squeezes her back, not caring about her throbbing shoulder.

Elena helps Isabelle to her feet, and the boys go to check up and see if she's ok, expressing their horror and disbelief at what just happened, but before any of them can reach her properly, she's been pulled into another fierce embrace.

Even though it hurts her shoulder, Isabelle hugs Charlie back, letting him practically crush her in his arms, before he steps back and kisses the top of her head, his eyes scouring her up and down, before landing on her still-bloody shoulder for a beat. His face is impassive, but his jaw is clenched and his eyes are filled with worry.

"I am ok," Isabelle says, her throat feeling raw; no doubt from all the screaming she was doing just moments before.

"Yeah, well, don't do that again," Charlie growls, clearly shaken, but trying not to show it.

Isabelle doesn't let his harsh tone affect her, just like always, instead responding sarcastically, "Ah, oui, next time I will just ask the dragon politely not to eat me."

She smiles for a moment as her boyfriend glares at her. But then she frowns, her eyes darting around them all. "Where did all the dragons go?"

"They all flew off after the one that bit you when it screeched and let you go. Whatever you did to him hurt him and he flew away, leading the others after him. We think he was the leader of the pack," Florin explains to her.

"All I did was stick 'im with an arrow in between 'is eyes," Isabelle says. "It was the first thing that came to my mind."

"And it was rather brilliant of you," Florin praises her. "But now, I think we all need a break after that whole ordeal. How does apparating to the nearest town and getting some proper food sound to you all? And then we can make our way home, back to the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary."

His eight students positively light up with enthusiasm. Even Isabelle beams through the pain in her shoulder. Civilisation, here they come! She'll get to see actual people! Well, different people to the ones she's seen for the past months and months.

And even though she almost died, Isabelle can't help the feeling of warmth and relief that envelops her. Home. She'll finally get to go home with everyone else. Because that's indeed what the Sanctuary has become to her over the past two years. Home.